ORDER

The petitioner herein has been arrayed as accused No.1 among the two accused in the instant Crime No.78/2019 of Excise Range Office, Palakkad, which was initially registered for offences punishable under Sec.20(b)(ii)(C) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. After the progress of investigation, now the offence as per Sec.29 of the NDPS Act has also been added in the instant case.

2. The prosecution case in short appears to be that, when the respondent officer concerned and his excise team were conducting a vehicle search at Valayar Check Post, Palakkad at about 7.50 pm on 24.7.2019, the respondent officer had seen the petitioner (A1) coming out of a travel bus bearing registration No.KL-70A-5199 (SUPA Travels bus) and when the respondent entered into the bus for inspection, he had seen two accused persons coming out of the bus with one bag each in their hands and upon suspicion, trolley bag of A1 was searched first and certain amount of Ganja was seized. Then the trolley bag belonging to A2 was separately searched and another amount of Ganja was seized from him. It is the admitted case of prosecution, that the Ganjas seized from A1 & A2 have not b